some heard the gun
by saltzmans
Summary: He dies as he has loved; brokenly, bloodily and oh so beautifully—five times Damon Salvatore dies.


**notes | **this is the product of an intense love/hate relationship with damon salvatore and lack of sleep so therefore is incredibly non-liner and doesn't make sense...

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**i.**

The first time Damon Salvatore dies is cold, hard and the first taste of real life he's ever had and the irony burns like the bullet impaling his chest because before the blinding burst of pain hits him all he can think about is how small and meaningless his twenty-something years of surviving have actually been.

He's been caught up in an odd sort of twisted fairytale — sure, he's fallen in love with a vampire; he's fought a war — but it's all been happy endings and japing through life on good looks and charm. But then in the end, what does that really mean when you die young and fast, with a single moment of regret that you only really appreciate when you're crumpling to a heap on a dirty, forest floor?

It means nothing.

And that's all Damon can think about as his eyes dart open, staring at a late summer sky and for a moment Damon wonders if he found some unmarked path to heaven. But then he sees that goddamn Bennett Witch who's watching him with a look of — was that pity? — and as he feels a dull ache in his stomach; a craving for something he can't bare to admit, Damon knows that what he's woken up in, is anything but paradise.

**ii.**

Damon manages to live for a hundred more years and it's the kind of life he never had. He buries the longing and the pain and everything that he used to be — everything human and fragile — under the cacophonous blur of fangs and compulsion and bloodlust.

He forgets the boy he used to be; trading the trivial human way of living for a raucous world of alcohol and sex and cigarettes. He forgets about Katherine — or at least pretends to — locking her away in the corner of his mind, only to reappear on nights when not even blood can keep away the loneliness.

Damon shuns his brother aside, only appearing in his life now and again to offer crude comments and the occasional unhelpful piece of brotherly advice about the negative effects of leaving a trail of bodies from California to New York in his murderous mindset.

And then — on one of his visits to good old Mystic Falls where he spends his holiday time killing tourists and laughing at the pathetic excuses the Council come up with for covering up deaths — Damon's world comes crashing down around him.

It starts with the girl who looks like Katherine but it's not her because this girl is everything the vampire from 1840 is not and she intrigues him. But the Salvatore name still isn't one which is particularly welcome in Mystic Falls who's memories stretch far back enough so he compels her to forget about him and walks away before he can dwell on the past for a moment longer.

After he leaves she still keeps appearing unwelcome in his mind; the familiar brown eyes; the freckles across her nose, so faint one would have to be kissing her to know they were there. And then he gets wind that Katherine is still alive — trapped in the tomb under the remains of the church — and for a second his world seems to spark again.

But then Mystic Falls has never been good with keeping things simple and before he knows it, Damon's caught up in the small town with big secrets further in than he'd care to admit.

His plans to find Katherine wax and wane and before Damon knows it she's back but it's not as easy he thought it would because for once he was meant to be the knight in shining armour and instead all he is, is the fool on the sidelines who fell in love too easily and Damon's heart that he'd so carefully laid out for Katherine, is trampled on with six inch high stilettos.

**iii.**

Damon dies a thousand times with Elena.

Being around her is kind of like being tied to train tracks and being run over endlessness by a freight train because he's falling for her — hard and fast — but she's in love with his goddamn brother and all it does is suck.

He messes up time and time again with Elena and it drives him mad because Damon wants to love her, protect her but then he wants to hate her because everything he seems to do pushes her away even more.

Damon loses himself in Elena — since his wild plans of happily ever afters with Katherine dissipate into nothingness — Elena is the only thing left that seems to mean anything any more. Except she's the one thing Damon can't have.

He stays away from her; he grows a shell — a hard exterior who stops him from being anything but the violent older brother who makes rash decisions and everything worse. But Elena Gilbert is a narcotic and eventually he caves.

When he kisses her — in the lobby of some sleazy motel — it feels like his strings have been cut and she's the only thing that's holding him up.

But as quickly as it happened, the  
moment is over. She spins an endless mantra of betrayal and guilt and how she can't do this and Damon just listens. He just holds onto the little bit of paradise he found in her and tries not to let it slip away completely.

**iv.**

Damon dies with Alaric because he's never really had friends, so to speak but then the sandy haired vampire hunter turns up in his life and what more could he want in a person?

They have their moments — a tendency of breaking necks and stabbing each other through the heart — but it's a good kind of friendship, fuelled by alcohol and a mutual hatred of pretty much everything so when it happens, Damon goes along with it.

One morning — after the events of the full moon and Klaus the vampire-puppy deciding to fuck shit up even more — the pair of them are sitting in the Grill downing a bottle of bourbon between them because Alaric's still broken over Jenna and Damon is just in the mood for getting drunk.

"What's left here for me?" Alaric asks suddenly, slamming his glass into the table. Liquid sloshes over the side. "On this entire planet what have I got left to live for?"

Damon watches his friend and an uncharacteristic wave of feeling shoots through him. He takes a cautious sip of his drink. "You've got Jeremy," he replies idly. "And Elena. If you're into that sentimental family crap."

"You're a dick," Alaric grunts.

"Don't I know it."

Draining his scotch, Alaric looks over at Damon his mouth turning up in a half smile. "If I were, y'know," he says. "Into that sentimental crap. I suppose I've got you if all else fails."

Damon raises an eyebrow. "Really now?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I do."

But then it's not more than five months later and the storage room is cold even to Damon's dead skin and he's cradling Alaric — his friend; the only person he'd ever called a friend — and he can see the life trickling out of him; his face turning grey, veins clotting. And Damon knows better than most that people die and these things happen but he still clings to Alaric — he lets his humanity deep through — he doesn't stop the tears which drip onto Alaric's body.

Damon just does what he does best. He watches his friend die.

"Goodbye, you bastard."

**v.**

When Damon dies — for real, that is — it's not brave or noble or anything that he's ever wanted his death to be.

No.

It's slow and painful and stupid and even at nine hundred and fifteen years old, Damon can still recall the feeling of his first death when he was twenty-something and the bullet shot through his chest.

Now this death is even stupider — a werewolf bite of all goddamn things — the product of some Lockwood spawn rendering Damon Salvatore helpless. And no one has seen hide nor hate of Klaus and his magic blood since he disappeared to play Daddy in New Orleans.

It's strange because Damon's never imagined his death to be so mundane. He's always expected it to be quick — a stake to the heart or something equally simple. But instead he had to be bitten and endure a long drawn out death, laying helplessly on his bed surrounded by the people who have stuck through him through all nine hundred years.

Caroline is frantically trying to contact Klaus and it's funny because Damon always thought she hated him but now here she is, on the verge of tears, trying to find some way — any way to keep him alive.

Next to Caroline — for some reason no one can quite understand — is blonde barbie mark two in the form of Rebekah Mikealson who is looking almost as worried as Caroline. That's another person on Damon's long list of people who want him gone who's looking more upset than relieved at the prospect of him dying.

It's funny how things turn out so close to the end.

Then there's Stefan — Saint Stefan — who's been standing in the corner for the last hour and if his mouth didn't taste like sand paper, Damon would probably make some tasteless joke about bats to piss everyone off. God, he's going to miss Stefan. He's going to miss his stupid hair and centuries worth of teenage angst. His stupid diet of Bambi and Thumper and their stupid bickering. Like it or not, they've been together more of their lives than not and living without Stefan is not something Damon's sure he's ready for.

And finally there's Elena and Damon's heart throbs because in the feverish mess the bite has left his brain in, Damon can remember the day they met like it was yesterday. He can remember their first hug; their first kiss; the first time he woke up and she was curled up next to him.

Despite the burning running through his body, Damon manages to grab her hand, pulling her down on the bed next to him.

"Getting a bit of déjà-vu?" he murmurs. "From that other time I was dying in bed with a werewolf bite?"

Damon can hear Elena holding back a sob. "You've always been a stupid idiot."

"Hey," Damon pulls his face into a smile. "If I remember rightly you kissed me as I lay dying — care to repeat the experience?"

"You're not dying!" Elena's voice has risen to a shout. "I'm not letting you die."

"Shh...my...head. Just hold me. Please." Damon's breaths are becoming shorter. "Just...one more time...for me..."

Elena's arms wrap around Damon and he closes his eyes, breathing in her smell, her feel, her warmth.

"I love you, Elena," he whispers and he feels his grip on reality slipping. "So much."

"I love you too."

Everything fades into the darkness and when he opens his eyes, Damon Salvatore is twenty-something years old again and there's a bullet speeding towards his chest but now he doesn't feel so _pointless _as he crumples to the floor and wonders if perhaps this time he can wake up in paradise.

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_please don't favourite without leaving a review._


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